We sent our reviewer James to watch Cameron Sinclair Harris: PLANETS!!!

Entering the unassuming, intimate crate on the street that is the Assembly Rooms ‘Front Room’, the audience is greeted with a number of apparently disparate, and so all the more intriguing, items strewn across the floor. From a kid’s guide to space, to a cheap plastic baby doll to a sheet of silver foil, these objects, and many others, will accompany us on our absurdist journey through space in Cameron Sinclair Harris’s: PLANETS!

After a brief, delightfully silly opening to, what else but, David Bowie’s Space Oddity, Harris first embodies Mercury. From here we understand that this will form the core of the show as we hop through the solar system encountering the planets and discovering their various quirks and foibles – some of which are more extreme than others. As a comedy piece, there are plenty of jokes and it’s refreshing that they are of varying kinds – some audio, some visual, some based very much in character, some elements of clown, some musical, even one or two gently topical ones. Despite the apparent chaos, it is clear that much thought has gone into building the piece and it is much the richer for it.

Audience participation, whilst involved at various points throughout, is light and supportive, and aimed at joy and community. That Harris could have been slightly more sure-footed in some of this, as they are in the scripted content, is maybe understandable due to the slightly smaller crowd and did not detract from the general sense of fun that had everyone gamely joining in.

There is no escaping that this show is still a little rough around the edges at times, but there are also places where it soars, particularly as we get further out into space. The piece is at its strongest, and ironically both funniest and most heartfelt, when it lets go of the perceived need to go for the joke and instead really leans into the whimsy and weirdness. I find it hard to pick a favourite destination on this journey, but I think I will have to plump for Saturn because of their energy and character arc – make of that what you will – and because for me, much as the earlier stages were enjoyable, this was where the show really took off.

PLANETS! announces itself as ‘an existential breakdown disguised as a character comedy show’, and honestly, it lives up to that billing. It is very funny, a little chaotic in places, and still manages to be poignant in the absurdity. I recommend folk hop a rocket on this interplanetary journey and will also be keeping an eye on the sky to see where Harris goes from here.

RATING: **** 4 Stars

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